Xia Xia clasped Izumino's hand.
He had seized the future!
Unfortunately, Izumino was a man with a few tricks up his sleeve. Even though his body was only as strong as an ordinary person's, and Xia Xia had restrained his hand, the invisible hands behind him remained completely unaffected.
You dodged the first hand, but how were you going to dodge the second and third? Could you even react to my moves, little bro?
Incoming head pat!
"Sir, you're being a little too enthusiastic."
The next second, Izumino had a heart-to-heart with Xia Xia.
In the literal sense.
"Fine, if you're enthusiastic, so am I. I won't hold back."
Xia Xia watched his ribs get ripped out of his body and his innards become outards. Then, just like last time, Izumino cleanly and efficiently removed his head.
He loved killing, but not torture. A hunt should be clean and efficient, without any unnecessary movements.
Still, Xia Xia suddenly getting so close had really annoyed him. Physical contact was far too dangerous.
"What a guest. No sense of boundaries at all."
Before darkness swallowed his vision, Xia Xia heard Izumino mutter to himself with a touch of exasperation.
[Xia Xia was killed, his flesh stripped and his bones removed. Killer: Izumino (Invisible Hand).]
Then came several deaths in succession.
[Xia Xia was killed, his face torn apart. Killer: Izumino (Invisible Hand).] [Xia Xia was killed, his insides hollowed out. Killer: Izumino (Invisible Hand).] [Xia Xia was killed, folded in half like paper. Killer: Izumino (Invisible Hand).]
"..."
Tonight, silence lay over Cambridge.
Five times. Five deaths.
The pain and the bloody images remained vivid in his mind.
No matter how hard Xia Xia tried, he couldn't last two rounds against Izumino. Real people weren't video game enemies. They couldn't possibly have just a few attack patterns. Most of the time, their moves followed no fixed sequence. Unless you were a genuine martial artist, predicting their attacks wasn't even an option.
You dodged the first round. What about the second?
Go home and get some sleep!
Hard. Really hard.
Without meeting the conditions, he couldn't get stronger. Without getting stronger, he couldn't beat Izumino and his Invisible Hand. Without killing the monster blocking the door, he couldn't leave the spawn point. What was he supposed to do? This save was bricked.
Conditions. What exactly were these so-called conditions for getting stronger?
They probably weren't escaping or injuring Izumino. Over those five attempts, Xia Xia had done everything he could think of.
[The condition essentially means killing a character.] [Each condition can only be fulfilled once. In other words, only the first kill of a given character counts. Killing that character again in subsequent simulations or reality will yield no rewards.]
After he fiddled with it for ages, the light screen finally conveyed that information.
Seriously? You couldn't have said that sooner?
In any case, he had to find a way to kill Izumino.
An older guy like Izumino, who wore suits year-round, sat in an office, and handed out business cards, surely knew nothing about tactical planning.
Please. Don't make Uncle Izumino laugh.
Having awakened his cursed technique and fully unleashed the malice in his heart, Izumino was a monster. In some respects, though, he really was a genius. Given time, he would become someone formidable.
His use of Invisible Hand was masterful. It didn't seem like a newly awakened cursed technique at all, but an innate talent he'd possessed since birth. He could tear enemies apart from every angle. He had both the mechanics and the stats.
Izumino's Invisible Hand might not have been powerful enough to shatter stone, but dismembering a human body was well within its capabilities. Having been torn to pieces several times, Xia Xia was very qualified to comment.
Then striking first and seizing the initiative might be his only solution.
A sneak attack. To hell with fair play!
Xia Xia felt he'd discovered a very interesting exploit. He had to try it immediately...
An unaffiliated jujutsu sorcerer like Izumino most likely didn't have Reverse Cursed Technique to heal himself. People died when they were killed. So, as long as he had a single opening...
Taking the enemy down with him still counted as a kill, didn't it?
As for dying, that was no big deal for a softcore player like him. All that mattered was getting the upgrade.
Then it was time to do a little planning.
At the very least, he had to make Izumino drop his guard and expose an opening. Survival didn't matter. When all was said and done, he only needed one lethal strike. As the saying went, injuring all ten fingers was less effective than severing one.
"Look what I found. Sir, you really should have run a little faster."
"I thought you might have some of a young man's courage."
As usual, Izumino provided end-of-life care.
As before, Xia Xia silently reenacted being bisected. Looking at the half of his body that remained, he recalled an old story.
Legend had it that when Li Si, chancellor of Great Qin, was about to be cut in half at the waist, he tearfully told his son, "I wish to lead our yellow dog with you once more, out through Shangcai's eastern gate to chase the fleet-footed hares. Could we ever do that again?"
Then Li Si was cut in half and left in the marketplace, and three branches of his family were exterminated.
At this very moment, that felt rather fitting. Izumino was even arranging the organs scattered across the ground for him, following his compulsive sense of order.
Izumino really was a decent fellow.
Then again, the cruelty of being cut in half at the waist lay in the fact that you didn't die immediately. Xia Xia could clearly feel his life draining through that horrific wound as his body gradually grew cold.
It really fucking hurt. Jujutsu sorcerers were all lunatics, and the unaffiliated ones were the craziest of the lot.
But Xia Xia also remembered something he'd once heard...
"Even after a cobra's head has been severed, its nerves aren't completely dead, so it can still leap up and injure someone."
"Supposedly, a chef who'd spent years making snake soup was bitten by a severed cobra head that sprang up while he was preparing it. He died despite treatment."
Unfortunately, Uncle Izumino had never heard that story.
He never would.
Cries, howls, disbelieving fury. Yes, that's it. How badly I've wanted to see that expression on your face!
True, Invisible Hand could crush Xia Xia's skull in the very next second. But before that happened...
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
"God, witness me!"
Xia Xia suddenly raised his head like a beast, a dying wolf or dog. He sank his teeth into Izumino's throat, then gnawed it to shreds. At the same time, the sharp scrap of sheet metal clenched in his left hand, already embedded halfway into his palm, sliced open Izumino's carotid artery.
Bite! Tear off great mouthfuls!
Widen the wound! Rip it open! More blood!
Blood! Give me more blood!!!
Blood, warm and fresh, drenched Xia Xia's crazed but dying body, keeping his cooling corpse from becoming a statue.
Izumino's Invisible Hand was certainly powerful, but his body was merely human. Without Reverse Cursed Technique, as long as Xia Xia could get close, people died when they were killed.
Hopefully Uncle Izumino wouldn't awaken Reverse Cursed Technique on the brink of death.
Feigning weakness had always worked in warfare. Failing to finish off a dying enemy was a sin.
As death arrived, Xia Xia's thoughts ground to a halt. Before he died, he contentedly swallowed an entire chunk of fresh flesh that still retained its warmth. It was a shredded piece of...
For the sake of our physical and mental well-being, let's not think about which body part that was just yet.
Still struggling on the ground beside him, Izumino let out a dying cry. But his shattered throat left his words trapped in his windpipe behind sticky blood clots. All he could produce was a wheeze like a broken bellows.
Before he died, the middle-aged office worker might have thought, Guys, can you believe this? I joined the Culling Game and got bitten to death by a zombie that spawned beside the road. Who am I supposed to complain to...? Failed the hunt and got shipped off to Train to Busan.
Well, what do you know? Scenes from movies and TV really were useful. Definitely something to use next time.
"Goodbye."
"I'll probably have forgotten you by the time I finish breakfast."
"How utterly bland."
[Xia Xia was killed, watching his innards become "outards." Killer: Izumino (Invisible Hand).] [Dropped 591 platinum, 60 gold, 15 silver, and 3 copper.] [Conditions fulfilled: 1] [Rewards pending calculation.] [Respawn countdown...]
In the pure white space, Xia Xia stayed silent for two seconds, then laughed like a full-grown can of yellow peaches.
"Hahahahaha! Look who's getting it now!"
He wasn't even that happy, yet he laughed until tears streamed down his face, as if he'd experienced the moment his life finally gained meaning.
A jujutsu sorcerer? Invisible Hand?
Just an ordinary fool born in an era without me.
Xia Xia ran his tongue around his mouth. It was clean, but he still remembered the satisfying pleasure of that scrap of flesh sliding down his throat.
Bloody, but sweet and delicious.
So good, so good, so good, so good, so good!
After venting his emotions, he began sorting through his haul. First kill achieved. Time to open the loot box!
He only hoped it would give him a good skill or piece of equipment that could kill in one hit, even if it took him down too.
Someone like him, who could respawn and reload saves, ought to trade wound for wound and blood for blood. Anything that let him drag his enemy into death with him was fair game. There was no need to practice precise execution or anything like that. Just narrow his eyes, ignore the pressure, and blow them both up.
A Grade 2 Sorcerer: tiny energy.
Self-Destructing Fushiguro: enormous energy.
[Calculation complete. Character killed: unaffiliated jujutsu sorcerer Izumino (Invisible Hand). Impact on the world: extremely low.] [Rewards: 1] [Obtained: physical attributes and total cursed energy equivalent to a standard Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer. The simulated character's cursed energy has been extracted to provide an all-around enhancement.]
Xia Xia didn't think there was anything wrong with those rewards.
Uncle Izumino was just an extra who didn't exist in the original story. He knew no advanced techniques, his body was only as strong as an ordinary person's, and all he had going for him was a relatively powerful innate cursed technique. Everything else was bottom-tier.
In the actual Culling Game storyline, someone like him would only get squashed like a bug by the various powerhouses. Even a Grade 3 rating was only thanks to a broken ability like Invisible Hand.
To be honest, Xia Xia had only fallen victim to a first-encounter kill because he was too weak, an ordinary person who'd just transmigrated. Next time they met, he'd be going straight through him.
Unfortunately, his luck had always been lousy. A cursed technique like Invisible Hand hadn't dropped during the reward calculation. That ability would have been incredibly handy for ambushing people in all sorts of ways.
Just imagine: someone was fighting Xia Xia, then Invisible Hand suddenly crushed their demon pills. He followed up with a seamless combo and put them straight into kill range. Unless they were some freakishly tough god among men, that move would leave them unable to fight for at least a few seconds.
Sigh. No use envying it. When the time came, I'd just find a way to develop a similar trick myself. There'd be plenty of time later, anyway.
Not bad. He'd finished his little appetizer. Next came the delicious main course.
Before you continue